Let’s start at the beginning, this was my 3rd
full season of doing anything on the bike, a few wise people had told me when I
started racing it will take 4-5 years to hit peak but I was sure it would be
this year.
Winter went well, I felt ready and confident I had been with
matt for a few months now and the training was progressing well. I had started
looking at over areas of improvement and planning in a few early races.
The first race of the year came and a delay in my tt bike
for the year had left me on a replacement that had been kindly lent to me by
bike science but I just couldn’t get my desired position on and that when the
frustrations kicked in and the confidence I had built over winter started
showing cracks, cracks I would never really recover from.
It would be late June before I got the new bike sorted and
ready to race and a while longer before I had everything the way I wanted. The months
up to June where scattered with DNS out of 11 races I entered I only raced 5 ,I
managed a win a second and a few 3rds but was way off the pace I knew I had and
that added to the frustration .
First race on the new bike the day after getting everything
sorted I knocked 19 seconds off my course pb I set on a good day on the P4 last
year so that gave me a glimmer of hope that this was turnaround time and with
the F11/10 up a week later it was a great time to go pb chasing.
The F11 was a good day and early times suggested a fast day
despite a bit of rain, I had that spark again and was excited to race, about 10
mins before my warm up was due to start the news came back about an accident on
the course and before I knew it I was going back down the motorway for the long
drive home.
This was followed by a puncture on a 2 lap 50 tt course that
I was leading by over 2 minutes after the fast lap and a race that I didn’t get
a great result but a picture told a thousand words.
We had done some work at the Newport velodrome trying to set
up a good position on the TTE, on the track I had a strong position and the
numbers looked good. On the road this wasn’t the case, the problem was that I had
been riding really head down on the track following the black line intently due
to my lack of confidence on my first track visit, once this transferred to the
road I might as well of attached a parachute to my back as I was sitting so high
and open to see where I was going it was costing me huge time , chatting to a
rider after about power for the day I could see something was really wrong and I
needed to make changes.
A 50 right before the national 100 was next up and the
change of position got me a course and 50tt pb despite the conditions being way
off the previous year which stuck me in a confident but unsure mood for the
100.the new position meant I was a tad down on power but a 9th at a
national event in my first 100 was probably the highlight of the year. This was
followed by further knocking down my course pb on a local course and going 54
seconds faster than last year and getting close to a course record on a lumpy
course that I wouldn’t normally consider riding.
It was getting there, it was far from spot on but I knew the
things that we could work on but was very reluctant to change anything when
everything was improving for fear of going backwards again.
A week before the national 25 illness struck, I had been pretty
lucky all year with illness and I was determined to push on and not let it slow
me down, illness won and the national 25 was a mixture of being sick and trying
not to be sick, a respectable 23rd but it had taken a lot out of me.
I tried to push on in the following weeks training knowing a lay off now would
be a disaster. I pushed on a felt better hitting the welsh 10 champs a few
weeks later and knocked out a 19 on the r10/17 and a power pb for the year ,
followed by a course power pb a few days later, only to be hit with illness
again and this time I was off the bike and really looking for the end of the
season to come.
I didn’t even ride the national 10 , I was feeling weak and with
the poor conditions I just wasn’t going to risk getting ill again, the small
bit of confidence I had scrambled back was again hanging by a thread and a
mechanical at the next race didn’t help that.
The welsh 50 champs was a case of just ride, I was down on power
for the day and struggling , I got 2nd somehow but was a mile off
the flying Kieron Davis .
Three races to go and another chance to get on the F11/10 , I
hadn’t rode any of the really fast courses this year and this was my final chance,
conditions were looking nice and although I wasn’t feeling my best I knew there
was a very good chance of knocking my PB down. This wasn’t to be and the race
was cancelled the day before, I had picked up a bit of a niggling back injury
at work and had missed a few training sessions and that was that 2015 done and
another forced week off the bike.
If anything this year I’ve learnt a lot , and winter has the
chance to address these things, I put way to much pressure on myself this year
and when things didn’t go to plan it ultimately lead to my demise. “You learn
the hard way” they say and that has been the case but they also say “what doesn’t
kill you makes you stronger “. I need to learn to enjoy the racing again and
take what I do in training onto the bike on race day. I know what I have to do
over winter and how to improve with the help of the key people who have helped
me get through 2015 and kept faith in me when on paper results only tell a very
small percentage of the story.
So on to 2016 a lot wiser and better prepared, I can’t thank
enough Nopinz ,Blake Pond , jersey pocket,bike science ,James Whiting,Will
Mangar from indurance for their great
support in 2015. Biggest thanks goes to Matt Bottrill for showing me the right
way to train and how to look at the long game and the bigger picture that will send me into next year ready
when a small part of me wanted to run away, along with my family who are always
behind me no matter how hard work I am. it leave me with the thought , the
difference between success and failure is the people you have behind you giving
you support when you even doubt yourself a little bit .
